Mentally checking that off my list, I move to the next item on the agenda—regret. Regret is a wild card. Some days, I can acknowledge without the emotion attached, and others, those aren’t my proudest moments. Tonight, I’ll tackle that head-on.

I left.

Two words so small that even when they’re together, they are still my biggest regret.

I had no choice.

I’ve justified the decision to leave a million times. I had to, as they say, throw myself on the sword to save what mattered most to Lark. I don’t regret tricking her into medical school. I regret not figuring out a better way of going about it, a way where I would still be in her bed, in her heart, in her life.

The loss threatens to drag me under, so I push to surpass the emptiness I feel inside. But loss and I are on a first-name basis. Lucas and my life at that time. Lark and the life we were building together. I was lucky to survive my cousin, but I think I used up all my luck when it came to Lark.

Dragging my arm back down, I press the base of my palm against my chest in hopes of breaking up this knot that never seems to go away. For more than a year, I mistook it for a hole and tried to fill it. Somehow that made sense, but I guess it would behind the goggles of alcohol. After having been down that road years prior, I steered clear of drugs, but a laziness set in and booze complicated my perspective.

The knowledge of Lark living a life without me was too hard to bear. Didn’t matter that I had chartered this course . . . I never thought I’d see her again, and if I did, she’d hate me anyway. I had nothing left to give, which means I had nothing left to lose.

I was kicked out of my apartment the day after I found a thong of hers mixed in with my freshly washed laundry. I had dumped everything straight from the box, not paying attention. I didn’t take anything of hers, but finding them, smelling them, and not finding her scent did me in.

Guess the landlord didn’t appreciate my design choices. He cited something about a broken table and a chair smashed into the walls of the LA studio I was renting. Some consider that art. I saw it as my anger personified. There was beauty in the destruction—the high I got and then afterward—but it wasn’t satisfying. It didn’t erase her from my memories or fix the pain I caused not only my heart but hers.

How could I make this right?

I could explain my thinking, that nothing else matters. Only she matters to me.

I’ve gotten good at making bad decisions. Self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe. Shit ton of bad luck. Definitely. If I didn’t lose her before, I would now.

Loss. It’s a real bitch to deal with each day.